It became official yesterday. With the changes PADI made, and moving into direct to customer dive travel, they decided to slit the throats of shops who'd been with them for decades. The hedge fund owners don't give a shit about what they're doing to the brick and mortar shops. To make matters even worse, when the owner called the CEO, he didn't even get a phone call back. We were one of the biggest PADI shops in the Rocky Mountains, a 5 star shop with a superior reputation of excellence.

SSI had been courting our shop for some time, and this was the straw that made the owner, the course director and education director say yes. All of the instructors have completed the crossover, and we're no longer affiliated with PADI. I'm a low man on the totem plow, but how I wish I could have heard the discussion that the owner had with PADI today. I'll get some word eventually.

While I could carry both at my level, it's not worth it to me, nor do I have interest in doing so.

My shop (DRIS) is both SDI/TDI and PADI, but PADI is the red-headed stepchild. SDI OW is $200 less than PADI. You see the difference in the course costs on the big board behind the counter right when you walk in the shop.

I'll be honest, PADI just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. My shop is doing an event at the quarry later this month for PADI Women's Dive day. I'm refusing to participate out of principle. Going diving elsewhere.

I won't bad mouth their training, it's what brought me to where I am. But the philosophy has changed, and that's where our arguments lie. I mean, one of, if not THE biggest shops in the state, who has been a 5 star facility for close to 20 years, and the owner doesn't even get a phone call returned???

It's not just us. At a minimum, the 3 largest shops in Colorado told PADI to fuck off, and went to SSI. It might be 6, and there aren't all that many shops in Colorado. And of course, if it's happening here, you know it is in other states, as well.

Really enjoyed my crossover, and welcome the changes. I like the flexibility that SSI gives to instructors. I like the organizational push to "dive position" skills training. And, so much more.

Yeah i think Pat said he was going out there the same time i was out there visiting.  Glad y'all finally made the switxh!!

Hey, by the way, there's only 3 spots left for Coasta Rica!!!!!  You guys gonna pull the trigger??

??

I can’t understand the infighting with these organizations.

Trying to see if we can, but I'm also trying to get into a program before I retire, so may have to pass this time.
It's not infighting between agencies. In fact, SSI pays complements to PADI in a video for students. I've never seen PADI say anything about any other agency. What it is is a shift of PADI to offer direct sales of training materials to students, as well as direct to customer travel opportunities. They did this, fully aware of the severe impact it would have on dive shops.

SSI, on the other hand, is brick and mortar centric; you cannot get full access to training materials without going into a dive shop. SSI instructors can not be independent, they must be tied to a dive center. PADI does not do that. SSI wants nothing to do with travel promotion.

PADI is going the Freedom Group route, so to speak.

rumor has it it's being sold... as per scubaboard

I know nothing about SSI except they are owned or have some connection with Mares.

PADI is the McD’s of the diving world. You pretty much know what you will get wherever you go.

Here’s why I prefer SDI/TDI. TDI started in the mid-90s, all tech diving. SDI (sport arm) came about in late 90s. SDI requires use of a dive computer in OW. Tables being taught depends on the individual instructor. Who uses tables anymore except some old timers? I wasn’t taugnt them. SDI came out with the solo cert - early 2000s? Padi only started with self- reliant and tech certs when they saw they could make money. SDI/TDI  also owned by actual divers who run the organization. It seems PADI really started the downward slide after of the founders died 5-6 years ago and the equity firms bought it and started layoffs, raising prices, etc.

To me, PADI is lowest common denominator vacation diving. At our local quarry, the diver factories are all PADI. Divers go into the water a fucking mess.

A lot of this is probably just personal opinion, but I won’t touch PADI with a 10ft pole.

PADI? It was sold last year to the hedge fund. I'll have to go look at SB to see if it's going to happen again.

Nobody ever talks about NAUI anymore.

That was my training.  I've avoided PADI like the plague ever since.

+1

I don't know enough about the inner workings of the PADI mothership to understand everything they do, but they're a business and like any business they're #1 goal is to make money.
Not matter how accessible their training material is, you can't get certified without getting wet (with the exception of the EANx cert) and, to the best of my knowledge, you have to go to a brick & mortar dive shop to do that.
I've had a few students who did the online/e-learning. It's as much a mixed bag as teaching from the book. You have people that absorb the material like sponges and others who are rocks.
For me, the e-learning means I make $50 less, but I'm also not spending 4+ hours in classroom. For me that's a fair trade. I'm not quite sure why PADI charges more for the e-learning though. It's not a physical product like a book so I can't imagine it costs them more to distribute. I just assume, since it's still relatively new the cost is to pay off the up-front expense of having it made.
I'm also independent... I don't work for a dive shop, but I work with the LDS. They sell the course material and rent/sell the gear. So far it's a god relationship. Since they're the only game in town they usually end up making their money on gear sales. Not being an employee though, I'm not obligated to try to sell gear they stock.
This arrangement also means I make more money than I would working for a LDS. I've heard what some instructors make as employees and it sucks in comparison.

Not sure if SSI instructors that are required to be tied to a shop get any perks, like being covered under their insurance.

I can't speak for direct to customer travel opportunities with PADI. I haven't heard that nor do I know how that works.

Interesting. I haven't heard that. I'm not a huge fan of Mares equipment so that puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Is that a bad thing? McD's or Ruth's Chris... both have the same business model of knowing what you get wherever you go.
PADI's instruction is standardized and structured... as I believe most, if not all, dive instruction agencies are. If for no other reason it covers them for liability. If the instructor is teaching to the standard they have developed, they'll stand behind the instructor. If the instructor is going off the rails and teaching things that aren't part of the course material they're on their own. I get that and appreciate why they do it. Again, I would imagine most agencies are similar in that regard.

Also... most of the common dive agencies are part of and follow the standards established/agreed up by the WRSTC. So regardless of which agency you go with there's going to be a common standard among them for certification.

PADI doesn't require tables to be taught any more. The reason they haven't gotten completely away from them is because they're global, and in some countries people neither have access to or can afford to buy computers. So they're keeping them alive to cater to the lowest common denominators.

I think pricing is also regional. I've seen places that charge 2x what my LDS charges. Granted, some of those places are rolling the cost of boats/fuel into their fees, but they also work on volume so it shouldn't matter as much when you have a boat of 20+ divers.

I've seen a price for GUE fundies and to me THAT is ridiculous.

PADI starting self-reliant and tech was a natural progression and a logical direction as a business. If one fast food place sells breakfast, odds are the others will too. Keeping up wth the competition is hardly a reason to shit on a company.

I would argue that, numbers wise, the other agencies are much different. PADI clearly dominates the global market. But in places where PADI isn't I imagine other agencies take up the slack for being "diver factories and catering to vacation divers. Again... it's a business. Just like the companies that make the equipment have different branding for different users... they're covering all aspects of the market.

Seeing divers that are "a fucking mess" isn't a reflection on the certification agency... it's a reflection on the diver and the instructor. Someone that was certified by SSI or SDI on a vacation that doesn't dive again for a year or more is probably going to be no worse than the same person certified by PADI. While there may be more repetition in the instruction to drive certain skills in deeper, at the end of the day it's a somewhat perishable skill and retention varies from person to person and is dependent on the frequency of use.

I've seen people that have been diving for years that are a nightmare. I don't blame PADI... I blame their dive buddies for not correcting them and the diver for not trying to improve their skills. At the end of the day, if the diver meets the standards, they're not going to continue much beyond any more than a high school driver's ed teacher is going to keep bringing the student back until they can compete in NASCAR. At some point they have to cut the cord and let the person grow.

That's the joy of diving... you have options.

Well said.

My responses in red. Respect a number of your opinions here, and just pointing out some differences. It would take a while to really dissect the philosophical differences between the 2 agencies.

I was just thinking that the dive shop travel issue could be a regional thing. The big shops here in Colorado really rely on our ability to put together dive travel for customers. Last year one of our employees became a full fledged travel agent as well, and we have a relationship with Apple Vacations as well as Sandals and Beaches Resorts. Having PADI directly compete against our ability to sell travel was untenable.

I suppose for a coastal dive shop, that may not be as big of an issue.

PADI bought Diviac, a dive-centric travel agency. Was your shop losing money to Diviac before PADI bought them? (Yes they were) They're not "pissing on the little guy," they've just added another aspect to their business, one which was doing just as much to take away business from LDS' before it had the PADI name associated with it. Now it's doing the same as it was before, just with the PADI branding instead fo the Diviac branding.

As for direct-to-customer material, the number of people who will take advantage of that is minimal. People do e-learning, or they buy the crew packs from a shop. The "middle ground" where someone goes straight to PADI to purchase course materials is insignificant.

PADI 5 Star is a marketing gimmick. Means very little to the consumer. A non-5 star shop has a few specific limitations on what they can do, a 5 star shop has several significant limitations on what they can do. See here: https://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/what-does-padi-5-star-really-mean.55942/#post-597622

How long until SSI shops can only sell Mares? It will happen. How's that gonna go for a brick and mortar retail business? Mares in the US is a drop in the bucket compared to Scubapro, Aqualung, etc. Hell, the only thing they make that's decent are their fins. Everything else is an "also ran." And their training and course materials isn't any better, even Drew Richardson has come out on record stating that PADI instructors need to teach neutrally buoyant and in trim, so it's not like SSI is one ahead of anyone else in the WRSTC.

The whole thing is much ado about nothing. PADI is still the most profitable certifying agency for an LDS to be affiliated with, and that's not going to change.

Responses in red

You covered my response well. SSI is not going to dictate what equipment we sell. We already carried Mares, and that isn't going to change. But it's foolish to think that they will dictate what else we'll sell. As an example; AquaLung is looking to buy PADI right now. Do you think that they're going to dictate that every PADI affiliated shop is i only going to sell AL? It's ridiculous to think so.

And no, we did not lose travel to Diviac, or whatever it's called. We did, very quickly, have issues with what PADI was doing. And it wasn't just us. I'm not whistling out of my ass, the number of shops leaving PADI clearly speaks for itself.

Source
Very interesting. I certainly wouldn't complain if PADI changed it's inflated membership fees. I DEFINITELY wouldn't complain if they actually focused on fixing more than one thing per year. Their professional website is a trainwreck.

Ain't that the truth! And the app is a joke.

im still a new diver but my local shop is SSI. for OW i did the e learning then one day in the shop for review and test then off to pool 1 then pool 2 the next day. whats nice is i didnt have to buy any books. Every padi shop i ever looked at said you had to pay for the books weather you took online learning or not. my friend had a book already he said i could have. they said no, new book had to be purchased. Made me think padi cares more about money than actually training new divers. Sounds like that hasent changed and actually got worse. As i understand all ssi instructors have to be tied to a shop.

I need to check... I know e-touch (interactive for tablet devices IIRC) or whatever they're calling it doesn't require a book (although they make up the difference by charging more for digital... which is stupid. I thought e-learning (online internactive... HTML or something, but not the same as e-touch) was the same (no book) as well.

Not that it matters now if you already did your cert through SSI, but it sounds like the PADI shop is playing BS games.

I did eLearning for SDI OW. I printed everything out but in hindsight, having a book to refer back to later would have been helpful.

I don't know why I care if I saved 50 bucks on books or not. As much money as I've put into gear in the last two years makes it a moot point. So if your shop is switching to SSI can you send me some stickers :) . I asked SSI they said ask your lds I asked my lds they said they didn't have any. Blah

Sad.

Ain't this as old as PADI vs NAUI. For the most part that was collegiate, but then it lacked Internet amplification and echo chambers.

IMHO the certifying bodies ought to be non-profits and focus on safety and promotion of the sport. I mean, what's next, some mega-sized health provider buys out DAN?

Which dive shop - A1 Scuba?

SSI doesn't dictate equipment that is required to be carried. We actually carried Mares before the buyout and no longer carry it after.

My store allows us to under the store insurance which saves me money.

I get gear we carry at a fabulous rate.

We teach to the standards. But no one comes out of my class without good buoyancy and air management. Also, you will have fun or else

Been out of the diving game since the late 80s... ear problems.

But the guy that did my cert was set up and covered everything for all the cert agencies back then - NAUI, PADI, SSI, YMCA, etc.  Same on his cavern/cave stuff - both NSS-CDS and NACD.  When you were done with his classes, he'd give you cert cards from whichever agency you wanted.

Guess the times have changed.....

Above underlined/bold is misleading...the cost of a PADI course is set by the dive shop.  If an SDI course is $200 less than a PADI course, that's because your dive shop chooses to make the SDI course cheaper.

The variable cost PADI charges a dive shop to train a single student is about $90 (student materials & certification processing).  PADI fixed costs include carrying mandatory professional liability insurance and professional membership dues, around $900 per year.  Any costs beyond that (pool use, instructor pay, gear rental, etc) are set by the dive shop.

As an independent PADI instructor, I charge my OW students (who are all exclusively kids affiliated with youth programs such as the BSA, 4H, etc) $250 for an OW certification, which is at least $150 cheaper than other PADI OW courses in the area.  $90 for the PADI student materials, $160 for everything else (fuel, air, pool, a portion of my fixed costs, etc.).  I break even after about 15 students (which is very doable in our short Michigan dive season), after which I can save for future capital expenditures or start taking pay (which I don't, because I do this for fun).

$250 total? Ouch. What is your cost for the student materials?

If I wanted to teach a student on my own, the cheapest I could do it with agency fees, pool fees, rental gear, and boat fees is 350. That doesn't include anything for my time or insurance or yearly dues. I could knock 100 off if they chose to do beach dives instead of boat dives.

We do our OW checkouts on a 20-acre lake.  Free access if your driver's license is in the county, otherwise $10.

Since I work only with kids, I can usually get the university athletic director to waive the pool fees, which saves $20 per student.

We're probably moving to central Florida next year, and I plan on expanding to disabled veterans.  Going to keep the same (or cheaper) price point, and I'm planning on soliciting donations to drive the price even lower.

I couldn't do this if I was SSI.  (I'm an SSI DCS...switched to PADI to go independent to pursue my passion of making new divers without a profit motive.)

ETA: my biggest complaint, and it was stated above, is that the professional support and website are absolute train wrecks.  I feel like it's 1994 all over again.

I hear from everyone - my dive shop as well as instructors over on SB - that PADI materials are more expensive.

Well, I don't know what they've been telling you, but I can't imagine how much more PADI materials can be than everybody else, when I pay them ~$90 every time I certify a new student.

Maybe an instructor from another agency can chime in here?

My PADI OW student materials are about $90 per student.  That's a crew pack (OW manual, tables or "ERDPML", logbook, student folder) plus certification processing.  The more I order, the less it costs (you get volume discounts).

I have to carry my own insurance and pay yearly dues, totaling around $900 per year...that fixed cost is "spread out" with the more kids I teach.

All other costs, and how I pay for them, are up to me.

My dues and insurance are less than half that with SSI and the shop's insurance. But, I really only became an instructor because my friend asked me to come help him out. Getting gear near cost is a good enough benefit for me. I do make money when I teach, but my real job takes up most of my time. Most of the instructors don't like to teach kids, but I prefer them to adults. When my daughter is old enough I'll set up a class for her girl scout troop. If I'm able to get the shop to donate rental gear for that and do lake dives I can do it for under 200 a head probably close to 150.

PADI OWD (in my location)
- Education material / Course Fee - $125
This includes the crew pack (book, folder, plastic zipper bag) and processing fee (PIC). I don't know how much the dive shop makes on this. Not sure how much a crew pack costs them.
Also includes rental equipment (reg set, BCD, fins, mask, snorkel, weights) for the duration of the course.
- Instructor fee - $300
This includes the classroom knowledge review, confined and open water dives, tank hauling. Instructor gets the full amount... none of this goes to the dive shop..

Again... this is where I am, which is a unique situation/location.

Sorry, I'd wandered away from this thread. My shop is Underwater Connection. However, A-1 left PADI, as well.

More SSI is better than padi

I just completed my AOW and nitrox through diversions in Madison which is padi. I was given the option to do e learning vs the book but that cost 50 bucks more. No

My open water was through SSI and eLearning was included in the cost not only did I have online access but I could also download all of the videos to the app to do when I didn't have net connection.

I just got an email saying I have to pay an extra 40 bucks to keep the padi ecard what the fuck is this shit? The ecard was included with the SSI cert.

PADI "put another dollar in"

continuing education will be TDI my instructors say the padi tech classes suck.

Negative.  The problem with PADI is that you never know what you're going to get.  I've been in PADI shops where the training standards were almost BSAC or GUE strict.  Consequently, their divers are excellent.  Others skip standards all together and pass anyone that survives the 5 hours of 1:12 water time and when asked about the fact that they're going to lose students,  say "that's why we have insurance"

Me too!

I dealt with a wide variety of divers trained by various agencies.  The short and long is that the diver is as good as the instructor.

Over the years PADI was jokingly referred to as PutAnotherDollarIn

Apparently the change validates the name.

I doubt that it's an accident that their phone number is "1800 pay padi"

I'm new to Diving and working in Saudi the only choice I had here was PADI.

That’s going to be quite common, it seems. PAD has more coverage worldwide.

From what I have heard in the rumor mill is that PADI lost a LOT of shops in California (Home Base) and shuffled staff as a result. They will continue to lose more shops if they do not adjust their practices. I am curious to see if there are any changes from them at DEMA.

I was half tempted to ask them today at DEMA, but having an SSI shirt on I think I'd be persona non grata.